


Cat's Eye

by Wenzel



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Backstory, Blood and Gore, Gen, Gore, Mental Torture, emphasis on that graphic violence warning, galra - Freeform, written for indigo zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 08:24:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14690226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wenzel/pseuds/Wenzel
Summary: Everyone has an origin story. Narti's is a little less glamourous than most.





	Cat's Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Please refer to the tags before reading. This story contains graphic violence, torture, a bit of gore, and a lot of resigned angst on Narti's part. It was written for Indigo Zine.

Someone always said it. Every time she went somewhere or met someone new, someone said it. “I don’t know how you stand relying on that beast to see,” they’d say. Sometimes it was over drinks at a feast. Other times, they meant it as a casual remark as Kova jumped from his chosen perch on to Narti’s shoulder.

This time, they were on Central Command. Publicly, Prince Lotor had come to beg forgiveness from the Emperor. Privately, Prince Lotor had loose ends to tie up before the final phases of the plan could start. Ezor lurked in the halls, spying, while Zethrid and Acxa waited for Lotor in the ship.

Narti’s job was, as always, more complex. She waited near the engine as Kova prowled up and down one of the thrumming pipes. Galran engineers and droids patrolled the halls, each of them sneaking little looks, sharing frowns and shakes of the head with one another. Unless told, they’d never know that she watched them from above through Kova. All the fools saw was that her face had no eyes. 

One of the captains of the flagship had been assigned to watch her.  _ He _ knew. He kept looking at Kova, his ears flicked back and wariness in his expression. “It must get annoying,” he said, “to always be so far from your body when you look through its eyes.”

She didn’t speak, though she wasn’t sure what would she would have said if she could. Her mother, Trela, had been a Crohan, and their language was built on touch and tail movements. Galran, so guttural and sharp, scraped at the throat like sandpaper. If she wished to speak to any of the other generals or Prince Lotor, she could simply touch them. Otherwise, they’d learned to read small gestures-- the position of her tail, the tilt of her mouth, or how Kova behaved.

Her tail swished around her legs. The captain eyed it. Whether he knew how strong it was, she didn’t know. Maybe the thickness or hairlessness unsettled him. It had others. Passing Galra edged away from her. They’d never admit aloud they were unnerved, but they did in action.

“Where did Prince Lotor meet you?” the captain asked.

His desperation to fill the gaping silence was, in her mind, pathetic. Even Ezor could endure an hour or two of Narti’s company before she started to whine. Maybe he thought he could befriend her and the awkward experience would end, as though she’d be charmed by the captain’s stumbling. She wished she could simply grab his arm and take his mind. It’d give her peace, and she might harvest something useful.

Lotor wanted to see what they were doing with quintessence, though, as he played the fool. “They may have found new uses for it,” he’d told her. “And I must make certain they’re not suspicious of my actions. The evidence so far is helpful to a conclusion, but it is not the conclusion itself.”

He bothered himself too much with appearances. If the Emperor plotted against Lotor, he should have been killed; Narti fully believed Lotor could do it. And if he struggled, she’d happily help. Zarkon’s mind was no fortress, after all. Acxa always looked unsettled by such a promise, though Ezor saw the logic. 

“You should like it,” Ezor told Acxa once. “We’re not killing everyone. Just one old man!” Her smile had been bright as looking a sun head-on.

Acxa had eyed Ezor. “There’s nothing honourable,” she said, “about taking over someone’s mind in single combat.”

Narti had shrugged.  _ Why would I care about a man who had all the opportunities in the world, yet squandered them because his own stupidity? _ Acxa had turned away, though. Ezor shrugged back at Narti, just as puzzled about Acxa’s obsession with the deaths of those who would kill her.

Each of them had pasts. Zethrid’s people were split between mountain-dwellers who’d spent centuries fighting Galra rule, and the other half that’d spawned Zethrid’s mother. The mountain-dwellers scraped by on scrubland and lizards, fleeing Galran ships and spitting on those who could have helped them, too prideful for their own good. Zethrid’s mother had come from those who lived in the valleys. Just as prideful, to be sure, but more willing to make compromises. If the Galra were to rule, why would the Kedin not profit off it? Her mother had been a mercenary, and taught Zethrid both pride and the ways of war.

Ezor’s mother had been a paid spy. A romance with a starry-eyed captain produced Ezor, and she’d followed her mother’s footsteps, if with more skill. From what Narti had gathered, Ezor’s mother now lived on one of the Empire’s pleasure planets, content and well-fed and disguised under one of her many names. 

Acxa’s past was less known. Her loyalty was less to the Empire’s ideals, and more to Lotor himself. She didn’t have money as a concern, nor did she have pride tied up in the Empire’s success. All she wanted was for the Empire to be kind and stable. She seemed unaware that the former would never truly come to pass. At best, Lotor offered a silk-covered fist to his allies. At worst, he would put a planet to the torch if it was necessary.

Her earpiece crackled. “Narti, are you there?” Ezor’s voice sounded bright and cheery as an afternoon. “The Prince spoke to the Emperor. He asked me to tell you that the ship should be departing in a varga.” Narti reached up and tapped the earpiece twice. The clunks let Ezor know what she meant. “Give Kova a pet for me!”

Narti rapped the microphone just as the line cut out. Kova purred from above, hearing through the lingering telepathic bond what Ezor had asked. Narti pet Kova, yes. But the idea of other people touching the cat repelled Narti. Kova acted as her eyes. They spoke through the mind in whispers and images. Narti knew Kova as well as she knew her own body.

Treating Kova as a pet ignored the depth of Kova’s importance. Just because Kova had been seen as a pest on Central Command, discarded by some fool who’d thought Kova mortal and unimportant, didn’t mean Ezor could treat the cat like a stray on a far-flung station. Kova purred over their bond, pleased and smug as he usually was. Narti knew the servant disposing of him had rankled Kova’s quintessence-infused mind. Kova’s origins were long-forgotten, even by Kova, but what Narti heard from him made clear that he was  _ old _ .

The cat hopped from the pipes on to Narti’s shoulder. His thick fur brushed against Narti’s cheek as Kova wrapped around her like a scarf. Kova reached out to the captain with a paw, as though offering it for a kiss. The captain didn’t dare touch Kova, the only flicker of self-awareness the man had shown in the two vargas she’d known him. When Narti pushed away from the wall and began to walk down the halls, he followed, still asking questions.

“General Narti, is something the matter?” He trailed her like a lost animal. Kova watched him through half-lidded eyes. His purr rumbled through Narti’s flesh and bones. It left Narti to navigate the halls through sound and memory. She had a hand to the side, discreetly checking for oncoming obstacles. “General Narti, I apologize if I’ve offended you.” 

He sounded miserable. Narti looked back with her own head, the motion for his comfort more than any help to her. Her ears twitched and she decided, for the first time in a long time, to speak to someone who was not close to her. She reached out and touched the captain’s arm. He startled back, though not before she sent her message.  _ There’s nothing wrong _ , she sent out. Kova’s amusement flooded her as the captain jerked in her grip.  _ I do not talk. But my Prince requires me to leave. _

Sheer gratitude took form on the man’s face. Narti knew what he thought.  _ This witch is personable _ , he’d think;  _ why was I so afraid, even if she looks strange? I see worse daily. _

He didn’t know. He’d never know. If he knew what she could do, he’d have been terrified. If he knew what she planned to do, he’d have raised the gun from his belt and shot her where her eyes should have been. Narti smiled for him, though she knew it looked nothing like how Galra wanted it to look. 

Her mind itched as she walked the walls. She was used to panic-blighted minds, but she’d been raised to communicate with ordered Crohan intellects, even if the other Crohan--full-blooded and knowing only telepathy and short hisses for outsiders--had been suspicious and distrustful. Narti had lived in a hut near the cavern system’s entrance. Those who visited were those of her mother’s clan who felt they had an obligation to her. It’d been a bigger farce, she thought, than the most elaborate productions in the Raging Gulch. None of them wanted to see the half-breed whose skin had patches of fur and strange ears. She’d heard a friend of her mother’s say once that Narti had taken after her father in the worst ways.  _ If it was more subtle, it might be acceptable to take her to the lower levels _ .

Some races lived in the sunlight, or below the ocean’s waves. The Crohan had learned to prefer the dark, dank caves. If light was needed, there were cultivated mosses and mushrooms. Crohan travelled by bridges that traversed chasms miles wide. Their withered eyes, long since past the concept of ‘damaged’, caught the faint light. The Crohan had once dwelled on the surface, but the growing heat and volcanic activity had forced them to flee to the deep, long cave systems beneath the surface.

And there, their eyes had turned from bulbous, light-hungry things, to little pinpricks that survived in darkness; some Crohan even lacked eyes. Narti was the latter. She’d been called the representation of her mother’s crime for bonding with someone who wasn’t Crohan. That came from the eldest--the most traditional, or the stupidest. The reality, as the doctors had told Narti and her mother, was that hybrids were sickly things, and that the sickliness had taken form in a lack of developed eyes and an inability to even hiss.

Beneath the surface of fur and skin on her face, there were a pair of half-developed eyes in her head. Her skull had formed small sockets, but the rest of her body had failed her. With telepathy, it had never been a problem. But sometimes, when she was lonely and sad and far too young, she felt like the eyes swelled, like rot grew inside the malformed flesh or tears she should have been able to shed were trapped underneath her hide.

She hated those moments the most. She’d learned, as a child, to busy herself with computers and technology. If she had programs to write, or code to edit, she couldn’t think about shocked gasps and mutters when she faced people.  _ Her eyes! _ a child would broadcast to their friends. Gossip would ensue, and she imagined pointed fingers and rounded mouths. 

Things didn’t improve as she aged. They didn’t tend to for anything. Her mother purchased a small rodent bred to be a Crohan’s eyes. Narti less trained it and more forced it to watch the world for her. The creature, long as a finger and fat as a mushroom, clung to her shoulder as she walked through markets and buildings. Fear spiked whenever someone locked eyes with it. The creature, a vyn, lived in holes dug far above on the surface. It wasn’t meant to be paraded through the dark. Only Narti’s tight mind control kept it from fleeing.

Crohan grew in bursts. A child--hatchling--would be small enough to cradle one week, and then at your knees the next. Crohan stored energy in their tails, which were tapped into for growth. The eldest Crohan, finished with their development, would have fat, lazy tails. Narti, who was tall among her people, had taken until her nineteenth birthday before her tail began to fill out. The Galran blood in her veins had ensured she would be massive and towering for a Crohan. It added to her strangeness. 

Her build seeped into every corner of her life. She was too big, too tall, too strong, and too fast. Sparring lessons, given as a way to honour her father, had been full of such criticism. Her body didn’t work like a proper Crohan’s. Her adaptations to the differences were to be shunned. Her people, otherwise so vibrant and smart, had their minds closed to the possibility of anything else. 

She went to school and her brilliance was a credit to the Crohan. Mentions of the Galran blood in her were only brought up when she failed.  _ You’re theirs when you’re good, _ she’d thought,  _ and anything but Crohan when you’re bad. _ She didn’t have the ability to shed tears over it. It was for the best.

She found her home among the fellow eyeless--the Veined, as they were called. One out of two dozen Crohan no longer had eyes, and the number only grew the longer they dwelled in the caverns. Hearing was more important. Everything echoed in the caverns, after all, and not even the brightest lights reached into the chasms proper. 

“You’re the next stage,” her mother and teachers had told her. “In your veins, the future of our race rests.” 

One of the teachers had hesitated, though, before he continued. “Even if you are part Galra.”

She supposed she should have been sympathetic. The Galra  _ had _ cowed the Crohan millennia ago. Crohan had been forced to comb the deserts, finding mines that they were then forced to delve into, no matter the dangers or discomforts. But that’d ended when the planet became too hot. The Galra had left in their ships; the Crohan had moved en masse to the subterranean parts of Crohaj. Evolution had taken things from there. The Galra still used the planet as a pitstop to more important locales, and so long as the Crohan gave tithes of ore and cave fish, they were left alone.

Unless you were like Narti’s mother. Then you went to the surface as a telepath for hire. Her mother had never been perturbed by the chaotic minds of outsiders. She seemed to relish the chaos, diving into it and exploiting its twists and turns. Using her talents for the Galra had brought wealth and status to her name. It’d also earned attention from fellow espionage agents.

Narti, unlike some of the other generals, knew her father. His name was Roden, and he’d worked as a freighter captain. It wasn’t the truth, not completely. The freighter was a cover that the Empire used to ferry agents in and out of hostile territories. Roden’s job was to look as harmless yet mercenary as possible. He wasn’t supposed to care about loyalty or morality. His cover cared about making a profit. Said profit involved smuggling things that made him an ‘enemy’ of the Emperor.

It’d been a good disguise, she thought. Those who still fought the Empire had been known to send their own agents to Roden--who would then deliver them into the arms of the Empire, whether the agents knew it upon disembarking, or later when soldiers arrived at the agent’s moment of glory. Roden had met Narti’s mother on the freighter as he brought Trela to a newly conquered planet. They’d bonded over a fondness for Galran dance music and an eagerness to trick any they met. It’d taken two years of short encounters, light flirting, and victories before Roden had proposed a child. 

Hybrids were neither easy nor cheap. Crohan were universally reptilian; Galra were mammals, though some flirted with reptilian features. Roden had been covered in thick, heavy fur the shade of pewter-purple, far from the scaly skin of her mother. A dozen scientists were required for the hybridization. The Empire had allowed the union on the condition that Narti be raised to help the Empire.

Roden was dead now. Inevitably, he’d turned on the wrong rebel faction, and the leaders had him executed. Narti had the impression that the person least surprised by his death was the man himself. Narti remembered, as a child, Roden joking about his fate. Her mother had hated the jokes but she hadn’t seem surprised when he died-- full of grief, yes, but not surprised. 

Trela’s time after that had been devoted to running the surface station as a Crohan commander, interviewing prisoners the Empire brought to the planet, and teaching Narti how to withstand the chaos inherent in the unordered minds of non-Crohan. It’d been inevitable that, when she came of age, the Empire would demand Narti’s presence elsewhere. When the message had come, neither she nor her mother feigned surprise. The only thing her mother had said was to listen only to the steady drips of water from Crohaji stalactites--not the roar of the ocean in outsiders’ cluttered minds.

Her mother had died four years later. A prisoner had broken free from her shackles, and bashed Trela’s head in. Narti hadn’t returned for the funeral. Crohaj’s charms were long dead to her, and Narti didn’t doubt those she’d once known still held the same anger they always had. The only bit of mourning she allowed herself was a burnt offering to her mother’s spirit. The legends of her people were silly--who believed in a great underground river of spirits anymore?--but it was proper, and Narti knew her mother would have asked for it.

Maybe it was just luck, or maybe it was good fortune generated by appeasing spirits, but a week later, she met Lotor while between contracts. Not that she’d known he was Lotor at the time. He’d been Fargath, a small-time bounty hunter who roamed the galaxy with a suaveness she’d thought charmed everyone he met but her.

He’d put money in her hand before she came to look at the informant he’d found. The informant had been a lump of fur and blubber. It drooled from the toothy hole that acted as its mouth. It looked like a parasite. Her tail had coiled behind her, ready to strike if needed. But the creature’s eyes were weak, and it couldn’t see in the darkness Lotor had set it in.

“I need to know where his partner hid the Valakian drive.” Lotor had waved a hand, the tech in his suit conjuring a hologram. The sight-creature she’d been using at the time was a damp beast that lived in bogs. It had excellent eyesight, though holograms proved tricky for it. What she made of the object was that it was round, silver, and had a flickering light on a finely pointed tip. She’d crept close to the captive and let her hand lightly rest on what she thought might be the shoulder. 

The images that came would have shocked the average Crohan. Visions of bloodied streets and the mucus of a popped eye, the smell of panic and the rankness of burning oil, even the feeling of warm blood sluicing down your pant leg as you drove the knife deeper and deeper. The creature on her shoulder squealed in panic. She reached for its mind and snapped jaws around it.

_ Hush. _

The leech-person shivered under her touch. Its fur bristled like quills. If she’d been in her own mind, she might have pulled back. But there was a drive to find and she was light-years away, down the shaft of memory and misery. The leech-person curled over its mother’s corpse as Galran soldiers raided the hole the leeches lived in. Anger, frustration, even the sharp, cool taste of helplessness and regret.

_ This isn’t what I want. _ The scene changed. The leech-person’s mind had a give that belonged to blisters and rotten fruit. She dug her claws deep, the very tips searching for a fleeing tumour.  _ Give it. _

The leech-person’s wail echoed in the hovel Lotor had trapped it in. Icy water filled its mind. It wasn’t the trickle of a stream, but the roar of rapids. She would wash away the creature’s resistance, she thought, and pick from the rubble what she needed.

She’d been unrefined then. Too quick to use force when she could whisper memories of sweetness and silk and receive wine in return. But for the leech-person, it had worked. Like a comet from the stars, a vision of the Valakian drive had been spit from the heavens. It landed, unceremoniously, at her feet in the water-drenched mindscape. She released the leech and plucked the memory from the ground. Its vision had filled her mind and she smiled. In the dream, and outside.

Fargath--Lotor--never intervened. He was no believer in gratuitous violence, but Narti suspected that the leech had either betrayed him or taken Lotor’s blood in a fight. Lotor looked at the quivering mound at Narti’s feet and dismissed the creature. “You have the information?”

She looked at him in her always-silence. Lotor sighed and offered a hand after peeling off his glove. She kept her touch light as she pressed her fingers to his. 

His mind was quicksilver. Light as a feather, it had the force of a gale behind it. Powerful, cunning, even cruel if he felt it best. She breathed in smoke and ice and exhaled fire. At that moment, she knew she’d found something special. Someone  _ different _ . It was a mind she could rest beside. He didn’t fear her like most: he looked at the world Narti lived in with wonder. His mind reached out to explore, but she knew he’d get lost. Everyone who wasn’t a Crohan did. 

Lotor didn’t struggle under her guidance. He followed her lead to a sanctuary of emptiness. In the quiet nothing, she filled the area with the memory she’d harvested. The Valakian drive had been buried in a warehouse days ago. The leech-creature had been warned by a yellow-eyed blue-skinned flesh-mound. There was a flicker of recognition from Lotor, then a searing anger. It was quenched by his steely calm.

“Thank you,” he told her as they left the leech in the room. The leech was mangled and whimpering. “Your skills are quite incredible. I’m surprised you don’t wear the uniform of the Empire.”

Narti shrugged and motioned to her face. She was not acceptably Galran. None of them had mouths like hers, nor did they lack eyes. She was Galran enough to have entry, but not enough to be truly welcome. The creature on her shoulder shivered as Lotor eyed it.

“There are better places to be than a mercenary’s life.” Lotor stepped close, his expression considering. “Have you ever thought about what you could do on a team--one with a purpose?”

She’d rejected him. Narti had never thought herself a ‘team player’, and Fargath had been Fargath, even when he revealed himself as exiled Prince Lotor. Hanging her fate with his seemed… unwise. Why would she risk her life for some hated man? She left the station the next day, fully intending never to look back.

Lotor was far more tenacious than she’d assumed. Months later, when a mission had gone poorly, her unit dead, her ship collapsing under the force of space, and her creature--her  _ eyes _ \--missing, Lotor appeared. He strolled on to the ship, a half-Galra woman at his shoulder, though Narti only knew their presence from the sound of boots against the metal floor. She’d huddled against the wall, her hands tracing a path through the darkness.

Lotor hadn’t laughed at her. He hadn’t joked or sneered at her weakness. He’d stopped a short distance away and spoke. “Would you like my help?” he asked, because while they didn’t know each other well, he’d managed to understand that she had her pride. 

Her response had been a lifted hand. His quicksilver mind had been a balm against her own panic. She looked through his strange eyes at a dark world of flickering lights. The woman was someone she’d later know as Acxa. At the time, the woman was just another threat. There’d been no thought that she’d later rely on the woman to cover her back.

The dying ship was left to the darkness of space. They had no creature to give her as eyes, but Lotor always offered himself when it came time for Narti to walk. Perhaps it’d been a way to acclimate her to the strange group he was building. If that was the purpose, it had worked. Oh, she hadn’t refused the creature they’d given her. Kova’s soft fur and pensive mind made the cat a comforting companion. Kova didn’t mind her intrusions, not even at the start of their friendship: Sometimes Narti felt the cat’s mind nose at her, batting here and there when Narti entered, but either Kova read her intentions or was too curious to stop her.

Narti had become, after years with Kova, used to a raspy purr in her mind.

As though sensing Narti’s thoughts, Kova mewed. It earned him a gentle pet over the crest of him head. The soldier beside her fumbled with his communications headset. “What is it--?” The snap in his tone died a swift death. “Oh. I’ll have her there as soon as possible, sir.”

Kova’s ears twitched. Narti already knew the message. Lotor’s bowing and scraping had ended: the captain’s commander was doboshes late to share it. Narti navigated the halls with ease. When the captain tried to divert her elsewhere--for what purposes, she didn’t know--she passed him. Kova took a swat at the soldier’s ears, his claws out but lacking malice. The captain leapt away, glaring at the cat. 

“General Narti,” the captain said, “High Priestess Haggar wishes to speak to you--”

Narti shrugged. Kova watched the captain, whose face twisted in frustration. He subsided, though, and the trek to the hangar proceeded in silence. Kova even turned away from the captain, writing him off as any sort of threat. The man was too hide-bound in the dictates of the Empire, she thought. He was the type that Lotor described as weak-willed but strong-bodied. With a deft hand, he could be led from objective to objective, forever oblivious to the desires of his superiors.

That ignorance--that waking sleep--had been what Lotor despised the most about the Empire. The Galra under his father had lost their spark. For a people flooded with quintessence, they had no life. Dead-eyed, hollow, obsessed with squabbles and insult, focused on all goals but their own. 

_ What worth is a being shaped only to serve? _ Lotor had once asked.  _ That is why I have all of you. More than cleverness or strength, you still have your spines and minds. _

Lotor waited for her at the hangar. Imperial soldiers were arranged around, watching for a single misstep. All knew their exile-prince was despised by the Emperor. What rewards would they have if they could kill the prince with justification?

As though any of them would be able to strike Lotor down. As though, when he achieved his goals, any of them would  _ matter _ . Narti’s tail swished around her legs. Kova contented himself by looking from person to person, and then to the highest balcony.

Narti’s ears twitched. Whispers filled her mind as Kova’s eyes met golden ones. Narti froze.  _ Look away _ , she told Kova. It was the witch, Haggar--Narti reached out with her own powers, grasping for Kova’s mind, but there was a power there, now, one tainted with purple and gold, so unlike the dark surface of her own. The power coated the deep waters, tainting it like an oil spill.

Her mind struggled to breathe. Panic filled her, as unfamiliar as the sun had been until she travelled to the surface. Her mother’s advice came to her:  _ don’t panic, never panic, as you’ll only drown faster in the rivers _ ,  _ find the steady dripping water _ \--but the oil filled the crevasses of her mind, suffocating who she was. When she tried to throw off the power, to give warning to Lotor who was only steps ahead, she found herself unable to move. 

_ Kova _ , she thought, but Kova said nothing. The cat’s eyes were glued to the witch, yet Narti sensed no panic from the creature. Kova watched her drown under the power, waiting for the witch to finish until there was nothing left. 


End file.
